Samir Balwani, in a guest post on www.techipedia.com, says that recognizing social media as a marketing tool is less important than realizing whether or not it is worth it for your business to use social media in the first place. Does social media add value to your business when “profitability, increased revenue, and efficient use of time” are all taken into consideration? Balwani states that “social media returns are not only difficult to measure, but also impossible to forecast,” so how can you know whether you should invest in Social Media Marketing (SMM), or not? Well, as Balwani suggests, you should consider where your business falls in the categories of High Return Industries or Low Return Industries in the market.
High Return Industries are: Restaurants and Hospitality, Businesses with Return Customers, Large Brands, and Online Driven Companies. Low Return Industries are: Businesses with only a few clients, and Impulse-Driven Products.
For further consideration, think about a question posed by Jan-Willem van Beek in the post, “Social Media is No Holy Grail.” Van Beek asks, “How does social media relate to meaningful communication?” He lists three types of relevance in social media: social relevance, functional relevance, and contextual relevance. Unless you have all of these, social media may not be the place for your company at this time. Knowing that before jumping into a full-scale SMM approach will save you time and money.
What does your business need to consider before using SMM?
